As part of the New York City Housing Authority's controversial NextGeneration program, which calls for leasing land to private developers, a large number of market-rate apartments are expected to be built on the housing authority's properties in the next ten years. And at a recent presentation to Community Board 3, NYCHA director of governmental relations Brian Honan revealed that the Lower East Side may be one of the sites that the housing authority is considering for the plan. According to Bedford + Bowery, Honan didn't reveal any concrete plans—though those are expected to be announced sometime in the next week or so—but did say that "there are plenty of development opportunities in the Lower East Side." (There are more than a dozen NYCHA buildings housing projects in the Lower East Side and East Village alone.)
As we previously reported, NYCHA plans to issue a Request for Proposals for up to four of its public housing sites, with the goal of creating developments that are half market rate, half affordable housing. According to B+B, the plans call for the following:
In total the new housing will consist of 10,000 units in buildings with only affordable housing and 7,000 units in buildings that are half affordable and half market rate; the latter is estimated to generate $600 million in revenue, helping NYCHA crawl out of its current $425 million deficit and reach its goal of a $8.5 million surplus by 2025, Honan said. B+B also spoke with committee members who expressed concerns over the planning process for these developments, noting that community input has not, historically, been a driving force in decisions that are ultimately made by NYCHA. But the De Blasio administration has been careful to differentiate its plans for NYCHA from the Bloomberg administration's Land Lease program, which had a similar idea but a larger skew toward market rate apartments (specifically, 80 percent market to 20 percent affordable).
Honan also noted that the De Blasio administration plans to get "extensive" community input as part of the process of developing the new housing. "I do not think that in any of these sites we will have 100 percent consensus—there will be some people for it and some against—but folks will be brought into the conversation," he said.
· East Village and LES Brace For NYCHA's Affordable Housing Plan [Bedford + Bowery]
· 4 NYCHA Developments Could See Market Rate Apartments [Curbed]
· De Blasio Wants to Lease Public Housing Land to Developers [Curbed]
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